What I have issue with is this sentence (which is a normal media talking point or point of emphasis without local context)....

At 7:41

"and then, last month, two days after Vladamir Putin secured another term as President, in a sham election, it was the Kremlin that announced that Donald Trump had called to congratulate Putin on his victory"

And why shouldn't Trump congratulation Putin? He won with the same sort of Saddam Hussein like victories that the GOP senators and Congressmen rigged their districts to win by. Why say "sham election for Putin" and not even mention the SHAM elections here? She should have said, " in a sham election, like our GOP senators and Congressmen (& a few Democrats) do here by rigging their districts. Our own little tyrants and Putin also seem to be alot like each other" or something like that. If Russia has sham elections then we have sham elections... NOT "gerrymandered" elections.

The way its done suggests that Putin is evil to an extent that is not normal for America which is a blatant lie by misrepresenting the reality on the ground creating a propaganda type environment.Even calling the GOP's strategy "gerrymandering" and Putins a "sham election" creates a heavily weighted assumption that one is just a little fun while the other is anti-democracy, when its both that are anti-democracy to EXACTLY the same extent. Either call "gerrymandered districts" sham election rigged districts OR say Putin gerrymandered his country. Same words and context for the same activity, please.For example; The storyline/words here should be "Penn. GOP leader ignores court order on rigging elections (like the dictators and tyrants they are)". Instead he makes it sound like its a cartoon prank that the "Democrats Court" (common right wing decoy for anything they disagree with, so now its normal right wing belief) is taking too seriously as "Liberals are Nazis" (standard right wing talking point);Penn. GOP leader ignores court order on gerrymanderingIf Pennsylvania Senate President Joe Scarnati continues to refuse with the court order to draw a non-partisan map, the state supreme court could hold him in contempt and even put him in jail.

President Trump’s election integrity commission didn’t get far before it was mired in controversy. State officials from around the country refused to comply with requests for detailed information on voters, and on Wednesday, after nearly a year of conflict and litigation, the president finally disbanded the commission. “Many mostly Democrat States refused to hand over data from the 2016 Election to the Commission On Voter Fraud. They fought hard that the Commission not see their records or methods because they know that many people are voting illegally. System is rigged, must go to Voter I.D.,” Trump wrote on Twitter. He followed that with a plea asking Americans to “Push hard for Voter Identification” because “you need identification, sometimes in a very strong and accurate form, for almost everything you do.”...

Which is how we got the commission for election integrity, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence but vice chaired—and effectively led—by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Kobach’s effort to assemble the data for a national voter file was in all likelihood an attempt to construct a version of the Interstate Crosscheck System, an anti–voter fraud program designed by Kobach and run by the state of Kansas. Crosscheck works by comparing voter registration files submitted by participating states, and marking potential duplicates, which are associated with fraud. The problem is this process produces a huge number of false positives, making it an active threat to legitimate voters. One analysis found that Crosscheck “would eliminate about 200 registrations used to cast legitimate votes for every one registration used to cast a double vote,” making it a tool for voter purges more than one for voter integrity....

Suspicious of Kobach and protective of sensitive data, state election officials from both parties refused his request for voter information. “The president created his election commission based on the false notion that ‘voter fraud’ is a widespread issue—it is not,” said Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, a Democrat. “Kentucky will not aid a commission that is at best a waste of taxpayer money and at worst an attempt to legitimize voter suppression efforts across the country.” Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, a Republican, was even more blunt: “They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.”

With little cooperation from states and intense scrutiny from voting rights advocates, Trump’s commission was paralyzed, rendering it useless as a tool for voter suppression. But the failure of this national attempt at erecting new barriers to voting shouldn’t obscure the ongoing Republican-led efforts at the state level to do the same, with real consequences for voter participation. Republican legislatures in Wisconsin, North Carolina and Ohio have enacted strict ID requirements, closed polling places in predominantly black and Latino areas, and purged huge numbers of people from the voting rolls. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, lawmakers in 31 states introduced 99 bills to restrict access to voting and registration in 2017.

As for national efforts to do the same, President Trump still has one major avenue for depriving Democratic-voting constituencies of representation and power: the census, which will be conducted in 2020. Census data is used to calculate representation in Congress as well as drive formulas for allocating resources. Unfortunately for equity and fairness, President Trump’s pick to lead the census, Thomas Brunell, has defendedunconstitutional racial gerrymandering and voter suppression by Republican lawmakers in Virginia and North Carolina.

Which means this fight will continue long after the election integrity commission is forgotten. Elected Republicans are still hostile to measures that expand access and enthusiastic about those that restrict it. The election integrity commission was a farce, but the Republican Party’s commitment to suppressing voter participation is very real.

The GOP-Russia Connection

Obviously hacking elections to help the GOP win is something the GOP is OK with as that's their own modus operandi, so its not a big issue...

GOP are even using fake comments, with Russia's help, to pass laws with LOW approval ratings! (How much more proof do we need that the GOP are dictators/tyrants and in a symbiotic relationship with Russia?)...American identities hijacked to fake support for Trump policies Rachel Maddow reports on an emerging pattern of public feedback on U.S. policy changes being stuff with fake comments from the hijacked identities of real Americans to show artificial support for Trump administration policies. Duration: 13:50

Clearly, when you pass a law against 83% of the Nation and 75% of your own party then Democracy is the least of your concerns, In fact, this is exactly what full blown dictators do, i.e. pass unpopular laws...

That's not even the crazy part. Part of the excuse for passing these undemocratic laws is due to FAKE comments INCLUDING THOSE FROM RUSSIA!...

Next evidence of dictatorship mongering (treason) is rolling back a law to guarantee honesty USING FAKE COMMENTS AGAIN! (clearly, this is a pattern, i.e. the GOP are INTENTIONALLY using fake comments to push their undemocratic laws to make it appear democratic! At least they are trying to pretend not to be dictators! That's a good sign!)...

The connection between Russia influencing elections AND laws is now pretty clear!...

Evidence of Russian trolls seeking to influence the process through social media (for a side that is already not fact based but conspiracy based! Imagine how easy it must be to rile up the GOP base and spread lies for the Russians!)...

This sort of treason is seeming into business practices (possibly with GOP board members)...

Forget Russian fake news for a moment. Another extremely consequential privacy-breaching, identity-theft hack is undermining our democracy and almost certainly being perpetuated by corporate America.

A pattern of cyber deception is appearing across the federal government in the nooks and crannies of the process where White House directives or Congress’ laws are turned into the rules Americans must abide by—or in the Trump era, are repealed.

Hundreds of thousands of comments, purportedly made by Americans, have come in over the electronic transom to at least five different federal agencies calling for an end to Obama-era consumer protections and other regulations that impede profits, a series of investigative reports by the Wall Street Journal found. Except, the people who supposedly sent these comments never did.

The latest example concerns the so-called "Fiduciary Rule," which originated in the Labor Department and was to talk effect in July 2019, to try to prevent conflicts of investment from investment advisers targeting retirees.

“Consider the experience of Robert Schubert, a Devon, Pa., salesperson,” the Journal’s report said. “A comment posted in his name on the Labor Department website opposed the rule, saying: ‘I do not need, do not want and object to any federal interference in my retirement planning.’ In an interview, Mr. Schubert said the comment was a fraud. He didn’t post it and doesn’t agree with it. ‘I am disgusted that people can post comments using my name,’ Mr. Schubert said.”

Conservative website The Daily Caller’s decision to publish an op-ed in which infamous Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska attacks special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into interference with the 2016 presidential election drew harsh criticism from journalists but quickly earned a link on The Drudge Report. Drudge regularly promotes Russian propaganda, providing more than 400 links to the websites of Russian state-media outlets RT, Sputnik, and Tass since 2012.

The incident points to a confluence of interests: Russians seeking to deflect from the scrutiny brought on by the Mueller investigation find a ready audience in American conservatives looking to excuse the shady and allegedly criminal behavior of Trump associates, helped along by right-wing media outlets.

Before she became a national correspondent for Sinclair Broadcast Group, Kristine Frazao worked for the Kremlin-backed network RT (formerly Russia Today), where she interviewed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on more than 20 occasions. During those friendly interviews, Frazao allowed Jones to push conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks, 2011 Norway shooting, and 2005 London bombings, among other events.[Except for 9/11, the conspiracy theories are made up with non science based facts that is normal to mainstream GOP style conspiracy theories - Editor]

In an email to Media Matters, Frazao stated that being at RT had given her a “refreshing” opportunity to report “on less covered subjects” but said she's now “very glad” to no longer work there. She also said she had no role in booking Jones as a guest.

RT described Jones as one of its “frequent contributors” and regularly hosted him during the Obama administration. Though Jones no longer appears on the network as frequently, he estimated last year that he has appeared on it "200 times." Jones has claimed that he was told years ago that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “a big listener" and was previously informed that the “Russian government listens to" his show and that the Kremlin partially “modeled” RT off of his Infowars network.

As Media Matters has documented, the right-wing host has used his own program to push toxic and false claims about the 9/11 attacks [That "conspiracy" is actually true - Editor] and the tragedies at Columbine, Oklahoma City, Sandy Hook, Parkland, and the Boston Marathon, among others. He has also spread conspiracy theories about Pizzagate (and was later forced to issue an apology for pushing smears).

At the time of the Frazao interviews, Jones’ website referred to him as “one of the very first founding fathers of the 9-11 Truth Movement” [Correction: Alex Jones no longer pushes 9/11 "Truth" now that the GOP has taken office! i.e. he just wanted Obama to be seen as the 9/11 guy then joined the side that was in power on 9/11... suspicious?- Editor] and he had been gainingnotice in the media for pushing fringe conspiracy theories.

Alex Jones helping with Russia's propaganda and thus with the GOP's propaganda;

Quotes

"Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty." - Rumi

"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that." - Joseph Campbell

"Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history." - Carl Jung

"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." - George Washington

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” - Dalai Lama

“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison. When the door is so wide open?” ― Rumi